This morning, sunning herself in a piñon out front, a female Northern Harrier:
She stayed for a bit more than an hour, and it was impressive how quickly after her departure our yard was covered in juncos!
Smile for the camera! (The pictures were taken from inside the house, and really don’t capture the creamy-golden colors underneath, oh well.)
Update: About my last report, when I wrote that it was gently snowing: soon after posting that, the snow picked up and we received about two inches of the fluffy stuff. It became white and slick outside. Temperatures have stayed cold too, so we still have a fair amount of the snow on the ground outside, and we don't have any mud, although some spots on the road are icy. Happily, the top of the S-curve coming down from town, while slick in the middle, is completely dry toward the outer edge of the curve; so if you start to slide, you’ll hit dry bare dirt before careening off over the edge, which will prevent the careening off over the edge. Isn’t that reassuring? Still a good idea to approach that curve cautiously; the road to the north is quite slippery with hard-packed snow.